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(Mizzima News/IFEX) - The State-run Myanmar News Agency (MNA) as of January 2010 has stopped providing photographs of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to publications, editors of local journals in Rangoon said.

The MNA is a government-controlled agency under the News and Periodical Enterprise of the Ministry of Information and Publicity. It has exclusive rights to produce photographs of top-level government activities and also acts as an agency releasing the government's news and information.

The MNA, unlike the Press Scrutiny and Registration Board, does not censor the contents of publications, but collects information and releases them on behalf of the government.

As the sole agency with the right to take pictures of government-arranged events including meetings of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and government officials, local weeklies in Rangoon rely on the MNA for pictures to be carried with their stories.

"The MNA stopped providing pictures though the censor board allows us to use it. I think they have been instructed not to do so," an editor of a local weekly in Rangoon told Mizzima.

"Since we are unable to get new pictures, we have to use old (file) photos. So far there has been no notice restricting the use of pictures," another editor said.

While running a story on the latest meeting between Aung San Suu Kyi and the junta's Liaison Minister, Aung Kyi, on 15 January, "The Voice Weekly" had to do without any photographs in its latest issue.

Previously, for meetings between the Burmese opposition leader and visiting US delegates or the government's Liaison Minister, the MNA provided photographs to the weeklies.

In its 16 January issue, the "Weekly 11" journal also carried the story of Aung San Suu Kyi's meeting with Aung Kyi, but had to use a file picture.

Meanwhile, with the Burmese censor board filtering and censoring publications and weeklies from publishing information critical of the regime and politically sensitive issues, the Myanmar Football Federation (MFF), chaired by one of the junta's business cronies, Zaw Zaw, has begun restricting local weeklies from covering football tournaments by limiting the number of journalists allowed into official briefings and stadiums.

A source close to the MFF told Mizzima that it introduced the restrictions because the Burmese media in exile have been reporting on frequent fights and brawls among football players or fans.

The MFF has announced that weeklies interested in covering MFF events would be allowed to register only one reporter and a photo journalist at their office. The journalists must seek prior accreditation with the MFF.

"The MFF is also restricting journalists' freedom. Sports are also important for the media. I fear that in future there will be more restrictions in politics, and in the socio-economic sector," Win Tin added.

"We were told that limiting the number of journalists covering MFF events was because the media in exile are publishing and broadcasting frequent fights and brawls on the football ground. I think the government wants to hide what is happening on the ground," a Rangoon-based journalist told Mizzima.

On 17 January, a fight broke out during the match between Yangon United, owned by Burmese business tycoon Tayza, and the current Myanmar National League (MNL) champion Yadanabon Club. Authorities had to deploy over 100 security officers to quell the disturbances.

While local weeklies in Rangoon were restricted from reporting the incident, the Burmese media in exile reported it widely.

Restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and assembly persist, amid the government's failure to contend with the range of rights-abusing laws that have been long used to criminalize free speech and prosecute dissidents.As part of the military's "clearance operations" in northern Rakhine State, where thousands of Rohingya Muslims face rampant and systemic human rights violations, the authorities denied independent journalists access to the region since early October.

An officer of the Myanmar army recently filed a criminal complaint against two journalists for allegedly sowing disunity among the military. Even though mediation by the Press Council caused the military to withdraw the case, this incident demonstrates how the military continues to throw its weight to get back at what it perceives as negative publicity.

The Broadcasting Law, approved in August, enabled private companies to enter the broadcast market for the first time. However, it maintains presidential control over the broadcasting sector, and the Broadcasting Council it established is susceptible to political interference.

The report surveys the rocky landscape for media and public discourse since the ruling military junta lifted the curtain on the southeast Asian nation in 2012 after five decades of isolation from the modern world.

As the election looms for later this year, incidents in 2014 and in early 2015 involving the press raises serious questions on the genuineness of media freedom in Burma. The situation is alarming as the state seems to have heaped all the faults and fines on the media in the past year, which has seen a media worker being killed in October on the pretext of national security. International assistance has poured into the country to develop the media aimed at lifting and sustaining the state of media freedom. However, a viable press freedom environment seems unlikely to materialise in Burma before the end of this administration.

There is some skepticism about how much influence Burma's youth movement can assert in terms of political change. Still, activists have benefited from greater access to the Internet, which has brought a new side to the online community after decades of heavy censorship

Burma is at a crossroads. The period of transition since 2010 has opened up the space for freedom of expression to an extent unpredicted by even the most optimistic in the country. Yet this space is highly contingent on a number of volatile factors.

The media landscape in Burma is more open than ever, as President Thein Sein releases imprisoned journalists and abolishes the former censorship regime. But many threats and obstacles to truly unfettered reporting remain, including restrictive laws held over from the previous military regime. The wider government’s commitment to a more open reporting environment is in doubt.

IFEX publishes original and member-produced free expression news and reports. Some member content has been edited by IFEX. We invite you to contact [email protected] to request permission to reproduce or republish in whole or in part content from this site.

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